North Korea suspends talks with South scheduled for Wednesday

North Korea said on Wednesday it had no choice but to suspend high-level talks with South Korea scheduled for later in the day due to U.S.-South Korean military exercises that went against the trend of warming North-South ties.

The meeting was due to focus on plans to implement a declaration that emerged from an April 27 inter-Korea summit, including promises to formally end the Korean War and pursue “complete denuclearization,” the South’s unification ministry, which handles ties with the North, said on Tuesday.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency called joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises a “provocation” and said Pyongyang had no choice but to suspend the talks.